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It took long enough, but UA finally started instituting psych evaluations for all of the students- especially the Hero students. Bringing out a seasoned veteran, the therapist had been in Hero-related therapy almost longer than the students had even been around.
But even they weren’t ready for the first round of evaluation with a certain explosive ash blond.
In hopes of getting to know the students, they started off with a standard inkblot test, giving the students a handful of papers with random ink smeared across them in a mirrored version of itself and asking them what they saw.
The first one was vaguely human shaped. Most people reported seeing a person that they had very strong feelings for- a mentor, an idol, a friend, an enemy, or a lover. Whether positive or negative, it was always someone who was on their mind rather frequently.
“Deku.”
The second one was more abstract, like a video game mob. It usually reflected what the person feared, like a spider or an eldritch horror. Save the video game enthusiasts, who ranted and raved about whatever mob character the blob most resembled before going on to explain the plot of the game- and sometimes the developer, even- all usually unprompted. The other exception was quirk enthusiasts going on about a person they knew or heard of with a quirk similar to the image.
Occasionally, those two would find their answers being flipped positively or negatively depending on the sorts of trauma that the patient had gone through, but that was why they would talk about the images after the test was over. However, that didn’t matter.
“Deku.”
It wasn’t that unusual to have similar answers to those, again, given the patient’s state or trauma, even if it was unlikely. However, it just got more ridiculous from there on.
The third one was, again, rather abstract. It was the closest to an actual “blob” shape, with a semi circular appearance overall and a few smaller wisps that branched out from it. It was another one that was favored by video game and quirk enthusiasts, but often represented fear in the normal person.
“Deku’s shitty hair.”
From there on, it was a pattern. Be it a blob shaped like a circle, "Deku's shitty eyes when that bastard is looking down on me," or a set of blobs aligning with each other, "Deku's stupid hands with his gross ass scars."
Every
Single
Fucking
Answer
That left the mouth of Bakugou Katsuki had to do with this "Deku" person.
It was obsessive! To say the very least.
From what the therapist had heard, Bakugou Katsuki was going to be quite the nut to crack. He was a gifted child from a small town- one of the most difficult types of patients due to their conflicting beliefs of themselves. Gifted children had a much higher rate of superiority and inferiority complexes, more often than not both at the same time. They were led to think of themselves in a much higher manner, seeing as their ‘talents’ outweighed their faults. More often than not, their hard work tends to go unnoticed because of a “natural gift” that people normally pinned on them, so they often have a hard time accepting their failures as a result of that.
Usually, they hold themselves to higher standards than others- sometimes even standards that they, themselves, cannot actually reach or achieve, and a failure to uphold those mental standards is often crippling for them and their self esteem. Due to this conflict, they often have a more difficult time accepting their faults, of course, but also their strengths. Said children (and of course, those that become adults) will often blame their weaknesses on themselves while pitting their strengths on “just being natural.”
It is also insanely difficult to overcome depending on one’s parents, and, seeing how Pro Hero Eraserhead had described Mitsuki Bakugou, there was definitely going to be an issue there with her enabling these complexes and driving her son to have a fear of his own weakness.
However,
“Deku.”
“Shitty Deku.”
“Deku’s stupid face.”
That seemed to be the least of this kid’s worries as he projected what felt like dozens of amorphous blobs onto this fucking “Deku” person. Honestly, this kid could have been given a literal silhouette of a tree, and he would have fucking labeled it “Deku.”
Now, therapy is a very careful procedure. It takes a lot of mental effort on both sides, and it can be imperative to keep a cool and level head. You would think after years upon years of explicit experience, it would be easier to maintain professionalism in the face of struggles. Yeah, that’s when discussing the weight of the world and the extreme pressure and mental toll that Heroism takes on a person… not whatever fucking hormones this kid has been snorting.
“How!” It was meant as a question, but honestly it just came out as more of a defiant yell after somehow the past three versions of demonic children’s finger paintings had all looked like who- or what ever the fuck “Deku” was. The therapist wasn’t even sure it was a person at this point. “Deku” seemed like an imaginary friend or some sort of weird name this kid called his repressed emotions.
“Hah?” Bakugou yelled back defiantly, as if he were looking at a picture of ‘Deku’ and not an ink blot with no discernable shape. “The fuck do you mean ‘how’?” While the therapist would have loved to get mad at the way they lost their temper, it was getting increasingly difficult to not know what “Deku” was and why this kid was so obsessed with it.
“Tch,” Bakugou rolled his eyes and flipped the paper around, pointing at it, “This is his-” So it was a person, a boy. “Shitty Black Whip or what the fuck ever, here’s his stupid fucking smile, here are his ugly ass shoes…” and this gay ass went on to label every single part of the blob shape while insulting various things of “Deku”’s.
By the time they got to the end of the stack, every single one of them had somehow related to "Deku." In natural succession, the therapist asked, "So, this 'Deku' person seems to be important to you, hm?" seeing as it took mental priority over his borderline abusive- exhausting to say the least- mother, both of the violent instances in which he had been taken hostage in and nearly died, the horrors he had witnessed on the battlefield, the Pro Heroes he admired, the villains he had defeated or the hypothetical villains he sought to defeat, and really anything else, despite the fact that this fucking kid had been through shit that would have crippled professional Heroes.
“Hah?”
Ah. So that is why people become villains.
“The fuck would you say that? Shitty Deku and I aren’t fucking close, and he doesn’t mean jack shit to me. He’s a fucking pebble in my path.”
“Ah, my bad. Would you excuse me for a minute? I remembered something that I forgot to grab before our session.” A lie. A total, blatant lie.
Slinking down in his chair, Bakugou wasn’t stupid nor naive enough to believe that shit, because, surprisingly, he had some awareness- really, he had quite a bit of awareness; he was often calm and calculating, not to mention smart and perceptive… just not when it came to his emotions, apparently. However, he didn’t say anything, biting his lip and watching the professional leave with their clipboard in hand.
Aizawa Shouta, aka Pro Hero Eraserhead and their homeroom teacher, waited outside of the office during each session. Of course, he noticed the fact that the session was not yet over, but, more than that, he noticed the look of sheer frustration on the professional’s face. Jumping up rather impatiently, he held a hand out as his eyebrows creased. It didn’t help that the therapist sighed, running their fingers through their hair.
“Listen-” Aizawa started off defensive, “Bakugou is an amazing kid, and he has dealt with a lot of shit. If you can’t handle him-” ‘we’ll find someone that can’ was probably going to be the finish to his sentence, but he was cut off with a rather distraught, “Who the hell is ‘Deku’ and why won’t he shut up about him?”